Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Fitz Roy from Lago de los Tres

I
woke up on the morning of the 12th shivering uncontrollably. The lack of cloud
cover had caused the temperature to plummet and the vapor from my breath had
frozen to the underside of my tent fly in a fragile lattice of ice. I was
seriously regretting bringing my worst and oldest sleeping bag; after warming up
a bit and eating breakfast, I hunted down some cardboard to insulate my tent
hobo style against the upcoming night.

Once again, Dylan and I joined our
new found gang of North American friends and hit the trail. Today's hike would
take us up to the base of Fitz Roy. The trail head was a short walk outside of
El Chalten and began with a brisk climb.

The
weather turned out to be crystal clear and after an hour of hiking, we reached a
lake with a great view of the approaching peaks.

The
trail continued on and the views of Fitz Roy and it's surrounding spires became
progressively more stunning.

The
hike was fairly mild for the most part and was made even easier by the fact that
we were only carrying day packs. It was nice to have a group of Americans and
Canadians to talk to as we hiked.

Just
before the last portion of the hike, we came to a small shelter and found this
bird just hanging out a few feet away from the trail:

Apparently
so many people have fed this thing that it just stakes out next to the trail
every day and waits for scraps. I threw a rock next to it to see if it would
scare off, but it just took a couple of hops and then tried to see if the rock
was food.

The last portion of the hike was a steep scree covered trail
that left me breathless. Fortunately, the view at the top was worth
it.

The
views from Lago de Los Tres were totally breathtaking, despite the hoards of
people that were at the mirador with us. We were even treated to a few small
avalanches from the hanging glaciers above the southernmost lake.

After
spending an hour or so eating lunch and taking pictures, we headed back down to
El Chalten and cooked up some dinner. I ended up staying up till midnight and
drinking a few beers to celebrate my birthday. At 29, I'm starting to feel old,
almost like I should go and do something with my life!